Rock a Day

Rock-a-Day

The lady, two houses in from the corner of Ruth Drive, moved last year. She was always bitching at me for walking the dog without a leash. Glad she’s gone. A guy named Boris moved in, he and his wife, seem nice enough. He’s Croatian. The woman who used to live there used to throw out house plants every year. Dumped them into the wet-land across the street from her house. She threw everything in there, limbs and grass cuttings, flowers and stumps. It kind of pissed me off her dumping like that but I made up my mind to mind my own business and for a long time I did. Until one day when she was particularly obnoxious about Gurler peeing on her grass, but that’s another story. She also had a beautiful patch of ornamental grass that she cut back to the roots each Fall. It grew back lush and strong in the Spring. It was variegated pale green and white. Before she started hammering on me about the dog I would say hello to her. She replied with the least effort possible. I disliked her for that. One day while she was digging in the yard I asked her if I might have a cutting from the grass-that would have meant a chunk of the plant including the roots. I would have done it for anybody who would ask me. She ignored me completely, didn’t even bother to answer. I really didn’t like her after that. Then she started to get after me about the dog and that was the complete and total end right there.

One day on my walk-it was very late Fall several years ago-I saw a plastic potted plant in the wet-land. I pulled it out and it was a hunk of the grass like the one in her yard. It was almost dead but I took it home anyway. I don’t think she was rooting it. I think she bought it and never got around to planting it and finally chucked it like trash into the woods. At home I planted it and cut it way back to the roots. I covered it with a layer of grass clippings and wood chips that had been composting for years. Rich, dark loamy almost soil, that would keep the plant safe from the snow and ice during the Winter. In the Spring the grass sprouted and grew all Summer until it was two feet tall. I cut it back in the Fall again and now, several years later, I am rewarded each year with hardy grass over four feet tall. It is beautiful. At the foot of the driveway, under an arching canopy of Sassafras trees the grass is a little monument crowning the field stone retaining wall. One day, walking past it I decided to take the monument a step further.

Every day, in the morning when I walk Gurler, I pick up one stone, one that catches my eye in the culvert or in a field. Round, rough, smooth, gray, square, it doesn’t matter. Sometimes I pick it up at the start of the walk and toss it in the air and catch it over and over as I make the circular journey from Ruth to Jack to Carolyn. Sometimes I pick it up just before I get home. Sometimes it is a heavy, large one and I do curls and exercise my arms and shoulders but mostly they are small-about two or three inches-and smooth and cool. If I dig it up with my fingers or my heel and it is caked with mud I will scour it in the grass and the dew of a neighbor’s lawn until it is clean and dry before I get to the driveway at home. Once there I place it at the base of the ornamental grass. There are hundreds there now and the stones have formed a plinth. A base for my rescued grass… One stone at a time. One rock a day.

Moses took

His folks to the seaside

He spread out his hands.

When he stepped out

Onto the water

He was walking

On solid land.

Oh, Lord!

A rock-a-day

A rock-a-day

Pave the path to heaven

With a

Rock-a-day.

Solomon built him a temple

The good lord showed him the way.

He used

Shining metal,

And dolphin skins,

But he laid the foundation

In the usual way.

He layed it up

With a rock-a-day.

He built his temple

On a rock-a-day.

Rock-a-day

Rock-a-day

Build your temple on a rock a day.

Read me a verse

From the bible.

Let’s hear

What it has to say.

Read a little bit

In the morning,

And read a little more

At the end of the day.

Put my feet

on stepping stones

To heaven.

Pave the path to heaven

With a

Rock-a-day.